Scoot: I felt like I was seeing Stevie Nicks for the first time
As a young disc jockey on the morning show of a rock music station in New Orleans in the 1970s, I felt like Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac were part of my job everyday. Fleetwood Mac reigned supreme among the artists I played.
As great as Fleetwood Mac was, and still is, Stevie Nicks was the vocal and visual focal point of the band. I always appreciated her subtle power. She has an indefinable charisma that contradicts her passive center stage position behind her mic stand. So powerful is Stevie Nicks’ presence that even the slightest movement or iconic Stevie Nicks twirl drew applause from the audience.
Having seen Nicks several times in big arenas on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and in Baton Rouge and at Jazz Fest just 2 years ago, I wasn’t sure if I would make the effort to go to her concert Wednesday night at the Smoothie King Center here in New Orleans. I got tickets at the last minute from the station, but I wasn’t sure if I could breakaway from the compelling news that I have become so accustomed to watching every evening from the cable news channels. Since President Trump won the election, the news has been as riveting as a great drama.
The reason I was somewhat reluctant to go to the concert last night was because I felt like I had seen Stevie Nicks and the concert would be a repeat of the past. I was wrong!
I may have seen Stevie Nicks perform before, but I’ve never seen the Stevie Nicks I saw Wednesday night! She turned a concert in a large arena into an intimate evening with Stevie Nicks with storytelling and a degree of honesty that gave a glimpse into her personal life.
One of the first stories Stevie told was about how she first met Tom Petty, who became a friend and whose name would resurface in another story later in the show. Her story about Tom Petty led into the song she did with him, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart.” Tom wasn’t there to sing the duet with her, but Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, who opened the show for Stevie, walked out to thunderous applause to sing the Tom Petty parts of the song. That was an epic rock moment.
Stevie talked about how much her life and her success have been a surprise to her. When she first started playing music in a band, she lamented about being a waitress and a cleaning lady and she, and how her love, Lindsay Buckingham, drove around in an old Toyota that didn’t have reverse. The vision of those early times helped us understand how she reacted to the first time she flew first class and was picked up in a long, black limo. Her life has been a surprise to her.
When I saw Stevie Nicks in the 80s, at the height of her solo career, she disappeared from the stage numerous times for costume changes. The people I know in the business told me about her love of cocaine, and it was generally believed that the costume changes were simply an excuse to constantly do a bump during the show. I can’t verify that, but the stories about Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac’s relationship with cocaine were notorious. Last night, Stevie Nicks very briefly left the stage to change or add to what she was wearing, including the original Bella Donna cape, but that seemed to be part of her desire to refresh the visual rather than take a hit of coke.
Stevie Nicks looked and sounded great, and her personable attitude with the audience gave credence to the notion that she had broken her bad habits and was new again. Stevie Nicks today reflects so many in her generation that have come to realize that dependency on drugs is not the way to a long, successful life. And she seems to be having much more fun, too.
The theme of her current tour is performing many of the songs she loved that ended up in a box on the floor and were never heard by the public. But Stevie also did many of her favorites and our favorites like, “Gypsy,” “Edge of 17,” “Rhiannon” and “Standback,” a song she did with Prince. Stevie talked about her respect of Prince; and when she gets nervous walking out to do a show, she’ll ask Prince to walk with her. She says she knows he’s there with her.
Like so many rock stars, Stevie Nicks loves New Orleans. She told her story of sitting on the sofa, watching the breaking news about this incredible storm named Katrina and how it touched her deeply, inspiring her to write a song titled, “New Orleans.”
Performed publically for the first time on this tour, the song is about the city and the people of New Orleans, who are resilient and strong. She said she wanted to write a song about the people that love their city and how they will come back, no matter what challenges they face. The crowd loved it!
Stevie Nicks was a bit philosophical and motivational. She counted the years from when she wrote one song to performing it Wednesday night in the Smoothie King Center. She wrote it 44 years ago. Nicks was amazed that a song she wrote when she was a waitress and a cleaning lady was being performed in front of a huge rock crowd 44 years later. She told the audience that this was an example of having a dream and believing you can do it.
As I write this critique of the Stevie Nicks concert, I am not succumbing to the belief that critics must be critical to be critics. I loved the evening with Stevie Nicks, and I’m so glad I decided to go to the concert. I do feel like I saw Stevie Nicks for the first time Wednesday night.
As the show went on, there were a few times when maybe some of the stories were a bit long, but I wouldn’t trade more concise stories for the overall biographical feel of the Stevie Nicks show I saw.
Toward the end, Stevie said, “I’m like your great aunt; you can’t get rid of me.”
The last song of her encore was one of the greatest songs ever written about life. Sitting alone in a house in Aspen, CO, Stevie Nicks wrote “Landslide” in 1973 at the age of 27. At the time these incredible lyrics came from her, she was a waitress and cleaning lady; and life was hard. But from that moment in her life, Stevie Nicks wrote the poetry of a song that still stands as a poetic and prophetic song about life. It focuses on her relationship with her father; and as she sat alone surrounded by snow-covered mountains, she wrote:
I took my love, I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
'Til the landslide brought it down
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
The fact that Stevie Nicks wrote the words to that song long before she would become a recognized talent should tell you that you never know how significant something you do may be in the future.
Stevie Nicks is an example of staying true to your heart and your instincts – even if no one else is noticing at the time.
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